The Ends of Thyme
by FlashMage
Summary: Centuries have gone by. The Z warriors are all gone except for Dende, Master Roshi and Android 18. If evil attacks, who is left to defend?


Disclaimer: I do NOT own Dragonball, DBZ, DBGT or any of its affiliates. I do NOT own Dende, the dragonballs, the Android 18, references made to other characters and everything that was/has been/still is a part of the DB and all of it's affiliates universe. However, I DO own certain original characters that will probably be present in the next chapter after this prologue is over.

Now that that business is over let's start the show!

VVVVVVVVVV

_Prologue_

I was old, far older than I should have been and still alive. I supposed that only guru, whose age had remained unknown to all had remained alive longer than I had. Him and the eternal Master Roshi. I stifled a grin, that man had probably existed for the better part of a millennia and yet he was still alive and kicking. The day he stopped breathing was the day the world would end. I highly suspected that he had crazily wished for immortality with the dragon balls a while ago.

I had adopted a staff made of hickory and it had faithfully lasted nearly as long as I had been tall enough to be considered a warrior. Mr. Popo had been kind enough to embed the fourth dragon ball, Goku's favourite, on top. It was my little way of honouring one the world's if not most powerful, then certainly most determined fighter.

They were all gone now. Tien, Krillin, Piccolo, Vegeta, Bulma, Yamcha … Goku had decided to go back to heaven a while back as well. Especially after Chi Chi had died. And then…

And then the kids went.

The first one was Gohan, and then Videl. Then all of them fell, one after the other to old age… never disease. Only the android 18, Master Roshi and Mr. Popo were still around.

Buu was probably still around too, but he had borrowed ('borrowed' being a relative term of course) a space ship from capsule corps and blasted off to explore unknown regions in space. He really didn't need it of course, but being the eternal child that he was, the voice controlled aspects of the ship had entertained him to no end.

It really was quite a sight to see what appeared to be an pink, obese blob with the power to obliterate solar systems say: "Make coffee. Stop Coffee. Toilet. No Toilet. Go. Stop." Several thousand times in a row.

If there was anyone more innocent than Goku it had to be Buu.

But that was mainly because Buu didn't have any morals- while Goku, brought up by his very thoughtful grandfather, did.

After three or four generations I lost track of the Saijien heritage and after a while, it seemed to die out completely.

On the Earth, there were only nine warriors that exceeded a power level of one hundred.

Five that exceeded one thousand.

And three that exceeded ten thousand.

Curiously enough, I was among those three.

Android 18 walked out.

She still retained her youthful appearance but I could tell the strain that time had taken on her, she winced every time she had to move her right arm, a nasty accident when she had sparred with Buu a few decades back had nearly rendered it permanently immobile. If not for the A.I. program that Bulma had created, an artificial intelligence that looked, acted and thought just like herself, it may have been impossible to fix.

As it was, it still hurt her.

I could see her massaging it unconsciously as she called out to me: "Kami! Good morning!"

 "Why the formality?" I asked her. Usually she referred to me as 'the big one,' or simply 'Dende,' my real name.

"Kami…" she looked away. Her hair billowed on the top of what was now called 'Dende's lookout.' Even though the former word should have been replaced with 'Kami,' It had been called that for the better part of three or four millennia. I felt old all of a sudden. So she was going away too.

"Kami…" She repeated, as if about to lose nerve she bit her lip, a human habit that she had picked up somewhere along the road.

"… I want to go see Krillin again."

A euphemism. And a pretty decent one at that, she was getting better and better at the English language.

"Are you sure?"

This was not an idle question. In the afterlife, Krillin had hunted for her counterpart, Android 17 for the better part of two centuries and couldn't find him. Lord Emma was tight-lipped on the subject and the Kaio's just sighed.

We didn't know if androids had souls or not.

The reason she hadn't gone sooner was because Krillin couldn't bear losing her forever. He had even secretly begged me to break the rules and give her immortality. She quickly picked up on this rather fiendish plot and put an end to it by kicking my ass to the moon and back. Quite literally actually. I had wished the moon back quite a while ago, it's absence was having untold long-term effects upon nature and I had wished to end this nonsense about not needing a moon, especially with the Saijiens gone and Oozaru's no longer a factor.

She nodded her head tremulously.

She wasn't sure about this decision. I could spot that a mile away. I sighed and silently thrusted my dragon ball staff in her outstretched hands.

"Ask the Shenlong to get Krillin and Marron's spirit forms here for a day."

She nodded her head.

And then, like a little girl, rushed up and gave me a hug.

"Thanks Kami."

I didn't say a word, smiled benignly as my station in life gave me the right to do and ushered her to the edge of the platform, I dug into my robes, found the small plastic object I was looking for and passed it to her. A scouter. She nodded her head again, this time with far more energy and enthusiasm. Clipping it onto her left eye she shot off towards the North, heading for the five star dragonball. My hickory staff still clutched tightly against her chest.

I sighed and hoped that I hadn't made a bad mistake. No one had made a wish for the past four hundred years. There was no reason. It was peaceful, calm… serene even. No Dr. Gero's to fight off, no changelings that wanted to attack Earth, no magical aliens with homicidical tendencies about to blast the universe to smithereens.

And, as far as I could tell, this was not an exception to the galactic rule, somehow, peace had descended across the Universe. In the rare times when I was in contact with the Kaio's they had reported, with a certain amount of awe, that there was harmony throughout the cosmos.

But something told me that this peace couldn't last.

That's why I stayed in any case.

That's why I wouldn't allow myself to use the dragon balls.

Maybe, just maybe, we'd need those wishes, we'd need the aid of some powerful fighters. Like the Z warriors.

Like Uub.

But what harm could a year do? Evil had not reared it's head for well over several centuries, surely it would allow ourselves enough time to-

My thoughts were disturbed by Cyborg 16, the reincarnation of the android with the same numerical constant. He was partly biological though, just like 17 and 18 had been. Despite this, the remaining Z warriors had given him the name that Buu (after a minute examination) had bestowed upon the cybernetic baby twenty years ago.

Red.  

I rechecked my thoughts. _Had been? 17 and 18 had been? _Did I already think of 18 in the past tense? There was no way that Krillin would allow her to use the self-destruct module.

No way in the world.

The massive behemoth walked up to me and bowed down as he always did, falling to one knee and letting his head scrape the floor. I occasionally had to fight the urge to giggle, and at other times to wack him on the head.

"Rise," I projected power into the voice, a solemn note that I did not use around anyone else. He was a feverent believer in the powers of the Shenlong and Kami and being the nice little Namekian I was I did not disabuse him of the notion.

He rose.

His right had shifted to his temple. He saluted once. Raised his arm in military style above his eyebrow and cutting the air cleanly as it descended back to his hip.

"Almighty, there seems to be something wrong with hyperbolic Time Chamber."

I jerked myself awake.

The _time chamber?_

Nothing, _nothing, _could affect the time chamber. Only cosmetic details could be changed like the entranceway, a thing that had been fixed quite a while ago.

I sent my psychic senses outwards, probing the centre of my lookout which seemed to be fine.

Everything was normal…

Oh hell no.

Everything _was_ normal.

The hyperbolic time chamber wasn't working.

That was should have been my first clue to the imminent attack had I been thinking straight. However, being the colossal idiot that I was I panicked.

Me, kami, god of the Earth panicked because one of my toys were broken.

That was probably why _they_ managed to slip by me unnoticed.

I didn't bother to let my wobbly legs fail me and instead called my failing reserves of chi into focus and blasted off towards my ancient training grounds.

What my cybernetic friend had said was true. There was something wrong with it. I tried to open the door to the tiny fraction of reality where time had sped up.

To no avail.

I glanced at my companion and he shrugged, obviously he had no idea what exactly had perpetrated this act.

Then the sky darkened noticeably and my failing, though still above average senses spotted Shenlong in the twirling in the sky.

Mr. Popo joined us as we saw the magnificent dragon curl and arch his back to the heavens, his emerald scales shimmering as lightening forked down across the land- though there were no rains. Not yet anyways.

Upon a whim, I transported us using a technique that only Goku had been able to use, instant translocation, and moved us closer to the dragon.

That move had probably saved our lives.

The moment we touched stable ground, perhaps fifteen feet away from 18 who had smiled at us, Kami's lookout exploded.

In retrospect I suppose we should have realized what a priceless artefact the hyperbolic time chamber was- and that if anyone was going to attack us with at least three quarters of their brains functioning (Goku's numerous adversaries seemed to lack that prime component) that they'd attack my floating palace.

Next came Karin-Sama's tower, as my gutted palace teetered and finally fell upon the magnificent structure. I felt a pang of loss, Karin-Sama was one of the last surviving trainers Goku. A faint ki presence manifested and then departed. I was sure that the old cat was unable to survive the crash. Someone apparently wanted to be certain and in awe-inspiring show of force, Karin-Sama's tower went ground zero and a quickly expanding ball of bright blue chi obliterated the place.

I gauged whoever had shot that thing to be at max, at a power level of five to seven million.

Back in the era of superpowered Z fighters they would have been pip-squeaks. But now…

Now they were monsters.

I telepathically tried to reach King Kai, and in confusion, came up blank. I tried the rest of the kai's… and discovered that they too, did not respond.

My heart started to speed up as I realized that I couldn't contact the Kaio's either. Something was either blocking me or…

I received a garbled transmission… faint but urgent… my worst fears were confirmed, the enemy had launched some sort of massive attack, attacking the heavens and the material plane at the same time.

I saw 18 look up in alarm and shout a something to Shenlong. He complied and a sword of surpassing beauty landed between her feet. 

I saw it shine as it fell, and with an awkward grace she caught it.

She yelled out something else and I saw her bionic flesh remeld itself, her right arm's flesh be rearranged, synthetics and bone all subtly shifting as she hurriedly completed a metamorphosis into a younger self.

She gave me a sunny smile and leapt to face the foe who had managed to take out our most powerful training tool _and _our only source of senzu beans in one shot.

He was seven or eight feet tall. A mass of fanged tentacles circled his back, he was the colour of mud and wore armour reminiscent of the Freiza era. What appeared to be a more stylized version of a Scouter was firmly attached to his left eye.

18 zoomed forward, covering several hundred kilometres in less time than it took to blink. An arrow from to the gods she smashed into him, sword deeply imbedding itself into his chest.

It was then I heard it laugh. Located somewhere in the stratosphere I heard him laugh, a faint, booming sound that hurt my sensitive eardrums even from where I stood. Mr. Popo and I stood rooted to the ground, watching the alien laugh it's head off. I felt Red's ki rise as he restrained the impulse to go help his recently renewed comrade.

I saw though, that no healing factor had kicked in, and even his ki seemed to be rapidly diminishing. With what I believed was a parody of Hara-Kiri, an ancient art of suicide, he twisted the katana right through his torso and let both pieces fall to the ground.

By the time we noticed the noxious black mist rise from his body it was already too late.

VVVVVVVVVVVV

Author notes: The next few chapters will definitely be quite a bit different as we move from DBZ world to a post-apocalyptic modern day Earth where technology is failing and people have started once again to train in earnest…


End file.
